Reel Word

3D content that is properly mastered from both a technical and artistic viewpoint can be a seamless experience. It becomes part of the storyteller’s pallet. Part of the baseline experience of watching moving images on a screen.

If you think about it for a moment, you’ll realize that film and television are ‘3D to 2D’ conversions of the real world. The image has no depth. It has depth cues and visual techniques, such as creative use of depth of field, that the filmmakers have developed into a language and mastered through trial and error, and that the audience has internalized through regular viewing and familiarity with the convention.

Phil McNally recently noted that no one worried that too much television viewing would damage the development of depth perception in young people.

There has been concern voiced recently that 3D movies could negatively impact the development of visual perception in young people. There is ongoing research in this area, and more is needed.

But I am also reminded to the Alan Kay comment that technology is what was invented after you were born. Concerns about the impact of viewing properly mastered 3D content may fade through familiarity and generational change.